Learning, living love with you
by xJaackie
Summary: Set several months, years(?), after their initial meeting, Charles and Erik have since, committed themselves to an established romance of every aspect. They aren't of identical origins or minds. And perhaps, never will be. But the sincerity of mutual, unconditional love grounds and sustains them. A dual POV drabble, which revolves around the depth of their feelings for each other.


_**Learning, living; love with you**_

Charles' eyes were kind but Erik's were always hungry: either half-crazed with the mad glint of zest or half-starved from the absence of it. _Its_ source, being anything. Kind eyes were quiet; unboasting and unashamed, timid in their presence and undemanding in their deliverance. Nice, too common a word for the rarity of their authenticity. A stark contrast to their counterpart – the ones that belonged to Erik. Smaller and expecting, honed and rabid. They commanded their own storm. Those were Erik's eyes. The calm before the combustion and the crescendo in between, eyes told many tales and theirs were no exception. Most of all, though, eyes saw. And they'd never seen stories like one another.

Strange to call each other a story, since the prospect of it seemed so abstract, almost as though the reality of them was a paradox within itself. Just words on a page that resembled murmurs and moments that happened in some time too distant and precise to call their own. Ink was too final, paper was too flimsy. The need to touch and taste and explore each facet of both too primary to translate. They were tangible entities, even in their immaterial ramblings, malleable to the effect of connection via hearts that had advanced (with their biology) beyond human capability. Charles' mind was dictated by his heart and Erik's heart was metallised by his mind, and both were subjected to the beauty of union.

Yet, they were separated.

The distance was slight, nothing several meant steps could not overcome. But sometimes they preferred it this way: out of sight, never truly out of reach; Charles' see-through tether suitable enough to accommodate Erik's inherent tendency to roam and Charles' inherent tendency to guide home.

Remarkable.

Not always.

Sometimes they'd both get lost.

Erik's fingers had been lost in Charles' hair occasionally, their intention to hold and tug misplaced in the mess of brown strands and averted to aimlessness. His lips and their sounds left to tell his wants. In the beginning he'd tried articulation, fabricating whispers that flowed with a near lyrical lace, concurrent to the coded transcript of his life. Charles had smiled with happy eyes, praising Erik's effort through kisses and caresses and bubbly chuckles. _That was what Charles wanted_, is how Erik would justify his reluctance to offer himself raw, _he's laughing and grinning, returning what kisses I give_.

Only, Charles had not wanted that part of him if it didn't match the others. He'd been waiting, contented, for his compassion outweighed his greed to forcibly consume the wholeness of himself Erik wasn't ready to show. _It's fine, I'll wait. This is enough, for me, if anything more is too much for you_. His lips curled upwards as he recalled with old fondness, the struggle of what now, appeared to be so long ago.

Erik knew his own naivety when the warm blue that would brighten the subdued hues he possessed blinded, as opposed to aided the bleaker colour they gazed into, shining with a delight he suddenly recognised the dormancy of. A giddy response to Erik's spontaneity, (which had reduced the twosome to a disjointed tangle of limbs and linen,) and prodded the hidden dimples around the edges of Charles' features and the boyish glee of joy unadulterated innocence could bring. Purity was foreign to Erik. And because of such, as he jerked, releasing his grip, sending their bodies toppling onto the bed and into each other, Erik's initial reaction was shock. Stunned in discomfort he'd barely managed a blink, the puerile act disgracing. However, whilst he'd resorted to his stiff, safe shell, Charles had rejuvenated himself as a loud, laughing child. Then, Erik smiled too and unwrapped the covers from who they were covering and dove down to devour.

A dutiful lover from origin of their romance, Erik's devotion to please rendered little to be desired. Lacking perhaps in a variance of lovers, Charles' wants were minimal and adaptable, designed to please and be pleased in relative ease. Almost in spite of Charles' safeguard of simplicity, Erik often obliged without request and Charles shared the same ideology. He withdrew his eye-line, pointed past the panes encasing the polished glass, and exchanged its sightless seeing for a fall. It travelled downwards slowly, following the direction of the bright beam shafting through the window and onto his bent legs and the floor farther down. Charles' hands rested atop his trousers, his left laying sidewards on his thigh as his alternate perched at the height of right his knee. The latter leg replicated the corresponding sides of a triangle and the other sat unshaped. Cushioned from bottom to back underneath the pleasant blanket of light, Charles pondered the curved flesh of his fingers and the lonely spaces in between. He flexed the fingers at his thigh as the muted humming of a familiar essence boldened.

"I miss you when you treat solitude as your means of comfort."

"Not all of us value company as affectionately as you do, Charles." Not an ill-intended quip, a plain statement at best. Erik materialised from the shaded area of the room's threshold and wandered into the centre, glancing about the refined interior he'd never quite feel used to calling home. "People are often one of two categories: useful and useless."

"_Oh_." Charles said, fighting the flourish of the faded smile their discussions brought. He lolled his head back onto the pad of the window seat and lazed his gaze over to Erik. "And which do I fall into?"

Erik's expression was pensive, pout and eyebrows pinched together as he contemplated Charles' query. "Neither," he decided after several seconds of thought, stopping several feet short of the other's body, "because you're not often."

Charles parted his lips to respond but the emotion trapped inside of his throat discounted any formulation of audio. So, he simply stayed that way, soundless and staring with benign appreciation. Until… "-Erik."

Erik spoke then, and finally greeted his companion's fixation with open eyes. "So yes, Charles, I find that I miss you too."

"Come here."

Erik quirked an eyebrow, albeit he came anyway.

He stationed himself in the place Charles made for him by shuffling closer to the window's surface. His right leg kept its earlier position as did his other, only now Erik's thighs lied beneath it. Erik's hand cupped Charles' lax knee, still focused on the area as Charles continued. "It's not that I don't appreciate your compliments, Erik, only I do wish the odd one wasn't a reference to me being out of the ordinary."

Erik brought his attention up to Charles' face, his own an exaggerated mirror image of his previous scepticism. "Why on earth would you want to be anything other than the extraordinary being you are? Charles, your gifts are magnificent. They empower you beyond anything _normal _ever could. So why, why wish them away even for a second?"

"Because I am more than my abilities and so are you." Taking advantage of their locked gazes, Charles sustained the hold with words for as long as he was able. "Professor X, Magneto, mutant; whatever name you prefer, they are parts of us, Erik. Undeniable, fascinating parts of us, but they are not all that we are." Multiplying his confession's impact, Charles shielded Erik's hand with his, rolling the flesh of his thumb over his defined knuckles. "I find the rest of you: the rawness, the roughness, the imperfections, just as brilliant. If not more so." His thumb halted its glide and instead a wider smile stretched across his lips. "Your power is strong, but is only as strong as the man harnessing it. I loved Erik before Magneto existed, and I pray you remember that."

In a word, Erik's favoured demeanour was cynicism; he was unbelieving by nature (ironically, a by product of his nurturing) and Charles knew so even before. The knowledge, courtesy of the telling vibe Erik's mind radiated, which, was affirmed by their time together. Charles, the privileged optimist and Erik, the down-trodden pessimist whose single privilege was life. Which, sometimes, didn't seem to be the gift Charles regarded it as, through the eyes of Erik. He'd seen much in them perennial their companionship, ever curious and ever cautious not to pry. Erik's experience and mind were his own, and knowing he'd been a victim to both, warranted extra care to protect the privacy Charles' power instinctually negated. No one person was meant to know everything, and Charles doubted any one person consciously tried so hard to thwart its knowing.

Yet, there were occasions (more frequent to the premature years of his powers), where he'd heard echoes of things that were only ever meant to be silent. The tempest that raged and reigned in Erik's mind had temped Charles from the start, coercing the possibilities his innate gift granted him to make the otherwise unattainable core of him appear irresistibly appealing. He'd wanted to know and understand everything about Erik, but what he'd wanted more was for Erik to let him do so. For, what party wins when the prize is spoilt by trickery?

Erik lurched forward and then he was upon him, the creases indented into his skin now renewed from mild perplexion on the way to comprehension, to the first hint of insight into the phenomenon that was unconditional affection. The realness of love in its untarnished, irrevocable form. Because it _was_, and he _did_. He loved him the best his reluctance to relent to anything would allow. And that itself, amounted to volumes of significance. He stilled a breath before Charles' lips, his hungry eyes verging upon famished as they reviewed their craving, taunting themselves with the closeness they wished to cross. Whilst Erik leant in his precarious perch over Charles' body, Charles had automatically adjusted to the movement, clamping his hands at Erik's shoulders and separating his legs to accommodate the width of Erik's hips.

This was commonplace for the twosome, Charles vacant due exception to the heady anticipation which clouded his senses with the enticing thrill of lust entwined with love, and Erik testing his own limits in committing to emotion; slow to start and thorough once decided. Charles didn't speak to him when Erik was amidst states, wanting whatever his deliberation concluded to be empty from outside persuasion. He'd learnt the tact of noiselessness through observation, reading a man who refused to be read an almost impossible task. The instances when he did, though, Charles always held in precious esteem.

"You didn't hear me," a voice, too timid to be Erik's murmured.

"I always hear you, but I know you don't always want me to listen," Charles whispered back.

"Listen to me now-"

Their lips met in that moment and then re-met several seconds afterwards, the first kiss a tender touch of two mouths which trickled the sentiment they pertained to each other, and the ones that followed grasped at a faster, further fervent demonstration of the feeling. Face half cushioned by Erik's palm and his side held by Erik's other, Charles opened his mind's eye. And, on par with his partner's permission, Charles listened to the billet-doux Erik was internally reciting. It said: _I love you, too,_ which was always enough.

* * *

_Author's note: Wow, it really has been a while since I updated/did anything here, and I apologise for that. But, needless to say I am still alive and kicking and writing is still incredibly close to my heart. So thank you, everyone, who has remained following me even throughout my huge hiatus. Your support means a lot. 3 _

_And as for this drabble specifically, I was originally in two minds whether to extend it past the implication of physical intimacy between Charles and Erik, or to leave the drabble as it is and upload an optional, 'extended' sequence in a subsequent chapter. I eventually decided upon the latter. Personally, I believe this piece is able to stand alone. However, I am wholly taken with this duo so it is more than likely that I will continue this, if only to extend the scene. But for now, I'm marking this as complete. _

_As always, your favouriting, following and (especially) reviews are always welcome. _

**xJaackie**


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